Sue Lukes
suelukes.bsky.social
Sue Lukes
@suelukes.bsky.social
Expert on local services esp housing, migration, migrant communities, community safety, human rights. First UK councillor migrant champion. she/her pronouns. Post in Spanish and English 💜💙🤍💜💙🤍
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Again - this hyperpartisan outfit paid tens of millions of dollars in defamation damages, due to its false pro-Trump claims about election voting machines. Extraordinary Gibbery to interview them
It’s already started - the BBC allows Newsmax boss to opine about bias, suggest some of the Jan 6 mob were merely innocent tourists visiting Congress, without pushback
November 11, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
“Trump has managed to cow huge swathes of America’s institutional media, despite the supposed protections the First Amendment offers. Thanks to his friendly relationship with tech CEOs, he has huge sway over online media, too. The bully pulpit has never been more powerful than under Trump.”
Win or lose, Trump's $1bn lawsuit would be a disaster for the BBC
Trump does not want fair and independent media. He wants cheerleaders
inews.co.uk
November 11, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
For whatever reason, the linked piece (which I read yesterday) is now 'unavailable to the UK online safety act'

Writing about violence online is banned, enacting violence in the streets is legal, very normal times
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 11, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
November 11, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
So then you have to think: how will the same BBC report on any economic damage that will be inflicted on the UK by a vengeful Trump because the government had "stood up for it"? (Whatever that means) And will that do good or bad things to our politics? I'm not optimistic, myself.
November 11, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
I think, as an American who studied the speech to assess whether it constituted unlawful incitement, the BBC edit was poor journalistic form, but it did not convey something substantively different than reality. My thing? The apology doesn’t convey to me that the BBC gets Trump isn’t a fair broker.
The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think.

New piece from me.

open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
The truth about impartiality at the BBC
And the hysteria of the current "crisis"
open.substack.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
"When the Left sees bias in BBC coverage, its arguments are dismissed. When the Right does, it’s a national scandal."

Yep. Nobody was forced to resign when they did exactly the same thing (only worse!) to Corbyn. The BBC just "rejected" the BBC Trust's finding. bsky.app/profile/jimc...
November 11, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
"... it's tumbleweed from the government, even though Musk's behaviour constitutes overt interference in British politics that is corrosive of Labour's position."
Why Won't Labour Take on Elon Musk?
On how many occasions has Elon Musk used Twitter to declare war on Keir Starmer's government? How often has he stoked racism, intervened in ...
averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
It’s already started - the BBC allows Newsmax boss to opine about bias, suggest some of the Jan 6 mob were merely innocent tourists visiting Congress, without pushback
November 11, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
For so many years the rightwing UK media, especially the Murdoch press, has gaslit us that the BBC is leftwing.

They think we are idiots and we haven’t noticed stuff like the relentless platforming of Farage.
November 10, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Bold early pitch for next director general of the BBC here
A radio programme like the Shipping Forecast but it’s called Bin Day and it just reads out every single council in the country’s bin schedule
November 11, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Quisling
November 11, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
The poppy on the front of the Telegraph looks absurd next to its gleeful reporting of a right wing foreign power's attempt to destroy a British institution.
November 11, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
A brilliant example of what Lewis Goodall talks about when he argues why right-wing radicals keep winning. They don't play by the rules and simply don't care. Whereas the institutions they want to destroy do even when said rules are contorted to absurdity and are blatantly being used against them.
The founder of Newsmax was just on the Today programme pontificating about bias. Boy, the BBC loves to submit itself to flagellation.
November 11, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Their first job should have been removing the political appointee Robbie Gibb from the Board. It should still be their first job today, tomorrow until it’s done.
November 11, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
I do not understand the Labour government's reticence over defending the BBC and social media regulation. Their long-term survival basically depends on it. Their cowardice in the face of it may be the single thing they are most remembered for.

on.ft.com/3JVxC1Z via @FT
BBC faces ‘existential’ threat after exit of top executives
Broadcaster’s deepest crisis in recent history comes amid fresh questions over its future role in British society
on.ft.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
The worst you can accuse Panorama of doing is making a misleading edit – and I’d dispute that! – to make *a point that was true*.

The programme aired without anyone seeing any issues with the edit. It was on iPlayer for a year without complaints. Donald Trump *did* incite Jan 6th.
Tory culture spox demanding the BBC "grovel" to Trump is baffling. Who is this supposed to chime with?

Just a bizarre line that no one who doesn't use X would ever think.
November 11, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
While we’re at it maybe also treat inheritances as taxable income spread over, say, 10 years.

As many have pointed out absurd that we tax income earned through labour more heavily than other forms of income and acquired wealth.
Laws are bent for the rich.

Wages taxed at marginal rates of 20% – 45% plus national insurance contributions (NIC).

Capital gains taxed at 18% to 32%, no NIC .

Dividends taxed at 8.75% to 39.35%, no NIC.

All income must be taxed at the same rate.
Nothing will change until the political system is freed from the clutches of corporations and the super-rich
The law is being used to enforce existing power structures for the benefit of the few
leftfootforward.org
November 11, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Is this correct USA #BBC watchers? No Panorama?

Indeed, I have just checked the statute period for libel is 12 months.

#Trump get lost.
November 11, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Labour timidity in defending the BBC is a great shame, but explicable. To defend them here you have to point out that notwithstanding the unfortunate edit Trump *did* incite the riots, having falsely claimed the election was fraudulent, and later lauding and pardoning the rioters.
November 11, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
The BBC is in crisis in the same way that GB News would be if you put Owen Jones on the board armed with a veto and plenty of coffee.
November 11, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Oh look. There really are "no go areas" in England.

And they're marked by St George's flags

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
NHS staff who visit patients at home say St George’s flags can mean ‘no-go zones’
Black and Asian staff left feeling ‘deliberately intimidated’, according to chief executive of one NHS trust
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Robbie Gibb issue is just one case where Labour has left in place people appointed by the Tories : Arif Ahmed at OfS, Kishwer and Reindorf at EHRC. Real self-sabotage.
November 11, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
“Anyone who thinks this is about a 12-second clip on a Panorama more than a year ago that not a single viewer complained about is not reading the proper story,” said one. “What’s going on here is much more about macro politics.”
www.theguardian.com/media/ng-int...
‘Make no mistake – this was a coup’: the extraordinary downfall of the BBC’s top bosses
The whirlwind that started when Deborah Turness came under attack at a board meeting is part of a wider political story, some say
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Reposted by Sue Lukes
Want some patriotism? If you’ve ever enjoyed watching BBC programmes or listening to BBC Radio, now might be the time to begin a Great British fight back. Let’s resist the far right extremists who want to place Britons in thrall to a foreign orange dictator.
November 11, 2025 at 8:45 AM